5.28.2010

One of the best things about the whole trip was all of our leisurely meals. It's how we Sandozes enjoy ourselves best :)

We poked around Notre Dame.

We climbed the bazillion steps to the top of the towers. Such an incredible view of the city.

In front of the 13-ton bell.

I think Tracy and I had the most fun while we were feeding the birds. It was insane how tame these birds were. We were in heaven.

Flat Stanley on one of his many adventures. That guy gets around.

Don't these 2 look like a couple of parisians?

We hooked up with Jim and Tamara Cook while up on Montmartre. So good to see friends from home!

Clay and I spent the time after his parents headed home to catch up on some of our shows. It felt pretty cool to be doing so by the Eiffel Tower until a pigeon pooped on us. Nice.

We then left the city and joined some of our friends that work outside of the city. It was good to spend time with them and help them with a video for their church. It was also good to be with friends to distract us from being too sad after Phil and Tracy left. People leaving is the pits.

Et voila! 2 weeks of family. It was awesome and we miss them already. Thanks for coming, guys. And thanks for loving us like you do.

5.25.2010

Brussels has become one of our favorite cities. We love taking people there.

It's fun to share Belgium's delicacies with folks from home. The "Frit" for example.

Eating frits out of a cone with a tiny fork... couldn't get more Belgian. After WWI American and British soldiers returned home with the Belgian recipe for "frits" though they called them French Fries since the people who served them were speaking French.... you can imagine that this doesn't go over well with the Belgians.

This is how Huy looked for most of the Sandozes' visit:

But on the last day, wouldn't you know, the sun came out.

We took Phil to "The Wall" where the Fleche Wallone cycling race came through a few weeks ago. There was one lone cyclist making his way up.

This is what the same hill looked like on race day:

After our walk, we walked a little more up to the fort for a pita picnic.

Not a bad view. We had a great time lounging in the sun and pointing out the things below us in our town.

The best part of the fort is the old, deep well. We spent a lot of time there dropping whatever we could find into it. It's about 300 ft deep with 100ft of water at the bottom. Creepy. Did anyone else out there watch Child of Glass as a kid? I don't do wells.

More exploring around Huy.

One last breakfast before heading off to Paris!

P.S. I have to say, this was one of my favorite sights while Phil and Tracy were in Huy. I couldn't help but smile when I looked down in church and saw Tabasco and crawfish socks. Such good reminders of family and home!

5.24.2010

It was really fun to arrive in Belgium with the Sandozes. I don't think any of us really gave Belgium much thought before we found out we were moving here 3 years ago. There aren't a lot of pictures your mind can conjure up about a place that you haven't really even heard of, so it makes it really exciting to bring people here, show them around, and give them an idea of what our lives are like.

We had a nice big breakfast that first morning. So fun to have them with us at our table.

You can guess what this means:

One of the only things I was hoping to do this week was fill my freezer with some Sandoz cooking. In one night, Tracy cooked up 2 big pots of chili and spaghetti sauce (to be spread out sparingly over the next 10 months :)

The boys were on burger duty. Bacon-wrapped burger duty. Oh goodness.

We in turn shared some Belgian treats that we have come to love. The Brasilienne, for one. Pastry cream, whipped cream, candied pecans in a light crust. Wow.

We spent one afternoon visiting Ali and Nada and their sweet kids.

They prepared an incredible meal for us and then we just lounged around, talked, and held babies all afternoon.

We also did a little photo shoot for Nagham's 5th birthday. So precious!

Our sweet friends:

We also had dinner one night with Sirin and Xavier. It was fun to share some American burgers with them after all the fun international dinners we have had with them.

Clay brought home a dart board from London and is loving it. Let it be known that Tracy beat him the first time they played...